1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a total photo-lab (photofinishing laboratory) system, and particularly to an apparatus for, and method of, automatically collating, sorting and enveloping photographic films and photographic prints.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, photographic prints produced by a printer-processor are sorted out by a collating sorter for collating photographic prints with photographic films and sorting the prints into respective sets, each corresponding to the same photographic film. A photographic film, from which one set of the prints was made, is cut into pieces each having six original image frames, and the film pieces are inserted in a film sheath. The photographic film inserted in the film sheath is put on a collation table, and is lit from the back so as to compare the negative images of the original frames with the positive images of the resulting prints. When it is verified that the negative images are identical with the positive images, the photographic film wrapped with the film sheath and the corresponding prints are enclosed in an envelope together.
It has previously been necessary to manually collate the negative images of the photographic film with the prints made therefrom. This is very labor intensive and thus inefficient. In addition to this, the need for a collation table for manually checking the images necessitates that the photo-lab be relatively large to accommodate the same.